The Overwhelmed Brain

Emotional Intelligence for Critical Thinkers

The Dramatic Victim Doesn’t Want Change

Have you ever met someone who complained about their circumstances but wasn’t willing to do anything to change them?  

In fact, if you were to suggest a possible solution to them, they would come up with an excuse or valid sounding reason on why your suggestion wouldn’t work. And the more you tried to help, the more flaws they’d find in your logic. 

The hard truth is that some people don’t want to change nor do they want others around them to help them change. People like this refuse to acknowledge the role they play in their misery and often blame others for their suffering. 

If you are intertwined with someone like this, you might have to be careful that you are not helping to enable this behavior. This type of person may find comfort in your attention to their misery. And as long as they are getting their needs met, they may not mind if you become miserable along with them as you try to help them.

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My Healing Journey from Being an Emotional Abuser

Emotional abuse is the ultimate brainwashing technique. It often hides in the form of feigned helpfulness, generosity, compassion, and love. The perpetrator knows how to appear kind and caring while intertwining abusive behavior, causing their victim to become powerless.

Emotional abuse is a method of controlling, manipulating, belittling, and invalidating a person over time. It is often hard to spot in the moment as it can be seen as benign or even “normal” to most observers. But as this behavior is repeated time and time again, the insidious compound effect of this form of hidden abuse causes its victims to lose confidence in themselves, stop trusting in their own decisions, feel devalued and unimportant, and blame themselves for being the cause of, and sometimes even deserving, of the abusive behavior.

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8 Steps to Becoming the Ultimate People-Pleaser

If you find yourself people-pleasing for love, attention, or fear of confrontation, then this is article is for you.

As a former people-pleaser myself, I’ve learned exactly what it takes to become very proficient at it. I’ve gained much wisdom since growing out of that phase of my life, so I thought I’d share with you my tips on how to become the best people-pleaser possible.

Of course, if you are already a people-pleaser, you may gain some extra skills reading this article.

Are you ready? Here are the eight steps to becoming the ultimate people-pleaser:

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Is it ever okay to release toxic family?

I received an email from someone who was very angry with me. She said “You should be ashamed of yourself for teaching that it is okay to break ties with family!“

She was referencing an episode I did on toxic family members and how I said if they are too toxic to be around that it’s okay to part ways with them.  [Read more…]

Are you enabling the bad behavior of other people?

Do you enable behavior that you don’t like? Is it possible that the people that cause you stress do so because you are allowing it in some way?

This episode covers a very important topic that may help you get your power back if you adopt and apply the message.

For more on enabling bad behavior, be sure to tune into the Love and Abuse podcast.